Filed to story: Luna Lovette and Alpha Kodak Story
“Your job or me.” It was the same one that his mother had given to his father. And when his father had chosen his job…well, life became pretty shitty. If Dante’s mate gave him that ultimatum, he could never make the same choice his father had made. He would have to give up his position as Beta. He wasn’t ready to do that yet.
“You know, there’s nothing wrong with a complicated woman,” said Marcus, topping his plate with more food. It was amazing that he was in such good shape when all he ever seemed to do was eat.
Dante took a gulp of coffee. “Personally, I prefer females who, like me, are un complicated.” Rhett snorted. “Someone like that would bore the hell out of you, and you know it. Just as you know that you’re not so uncomplicated at all. You might be easygoing and laid-back, but underneath all that you’re deep, complex.”
“That’s Ryan you’re describing.” Dante gestured to the frowning wolf beside him-the only enforcer who wasn’t joining in on the whole “let’s irritate Dante today” thing. Ryan, a man of very few words, merely grunted before returning his attention to the food in front of him.
“Ryan’s certainly complex,” allowed Rhett. “So are Kodak and all the enforcers-it’s part of why you all became friends in the first place. Like calls to like. But we’re not talking about any of the others-we’re talking about you. Since you took up the mantle of Beta when you were an adolescent, you’ve put yourself second to everything else-the pack, our Alpha, your responsibilities. You’re a workaholic of the worst kind. You need to find that work/play balance. You need to be as protective of yourself as you are of everyone else.”
Dante really wanted to punch Rhett. The guy was genuine, loyal, and he would give any of his packmates the shirt off his back, but he would also analyze their every move, take them apart, and find out what made them tick. It was the way his geeky, analytical mind operated. Annoyingly, he couldn’t just allow people to have their problems. No, he wanted to “fix” everyone. It was why Lovette called him a “psychological mechanic.” But Dante didn’t need fixing; he was dedicated to his job, but he was not addicted to it. “Easy there, Dr. Freud. Are you also going to tell me I secretly wanted to have sex with my mom when I was growing up?”
Rhett started to say something else, but Grace shot him a sharp look. He sighed. “Fine, shut down. It’s only because you know I’m right.”
“Now can we back get to the original subject? Why would Glory falsely claim I’m her mate?
She has to know that it’s not going to make me mate with her.”
“Maybe her pride’s stung because she’d expected to be more than a one-night stand and she wants to cause trouble to get back at you,” suggested Tao, the Head Enforcer.
“But I told her before I even touched her that I didn’t want anything more than that.” Dante sighed. “Why would she expect more?”
“Some people won’t accept what they don’t want to hear or see.” Rhett’s expression was genuinely sympathetic.
“Yeah,” agreed Dominic. “She’ll probably be happy once her brothers are done with you.”
“See-agent of Satan.” It wouldn’t be the first time a gang of brothers had targeted Dante. At least this time they weren’t his own.
“They’re all big fuckers, you know.” Trick’s lips twitched into a smile. “I heard they’re a crazy bunch, too. And I don’t mean ‘eccentric’ crazy, I mean ‘ we, the jury, find
…’ crazy. If I were you, well, I’d definitely be a little nervous.”
“Nervous of what?” asked Shaya as she entered the room and took a seat at the table. The redheaded female, who had been a close friend of Lovette’s since childhood, had recently joined.
Ordinarily, Kodak didn’t like adding newcomers to their relatively small pack of sixteen. In fact, with the exception of Lovette, it consisted of only those who had left their old one, the Bjorn Pack, with Kodak when he was banished. But he had accepted Shaya at Lovette’s request, and he had also allowed two members of the Bjorn Pack to switch with Selma and Kirk when they left Phoenix.
Trick smiled at Shaya. “We’re just congratulating Dante on finding his mate.” Almost as if he sensed that Dante was close to strangling Trick-not through a loss of control, just because it would be fun-Tao quickly explained, “A one-night stand of Dante’s apparently doesn’t like that she was simply a one-night stand and has decided to tell her brothers she’s his mate and sic them on him.”
Shaya winced. “Lovette’s not going to like it when she finds out. Good luck to Kodak with keeping her out of it.”
Tao looked at Dante. “What are you going to do? If it was me, I’d want to go and confront her.”
“That’s probably what she’s hoping I’ll do. I’m not playing her games.” Dante drained the last of his coffee. “We’ll meet Nick Axton at Mo’s Diner to discuss it like he asked. As her Alpha, it’s his right to sort this mess before it goes any further. Refusing him that chance would mess up our alliance with his pack. No spoiled little princess is worth that.”
“At least he was good enough to call and let us know what Glory’s up to,” said Ryan.
“Do we mention this to our Alphas before the meeting?” Tao asked.
“No.” Naturally it wasn’t good to keep things from your Alphas, but part of Dante’s role as Beta was to protect them-even from themselves. As Shaya pointed out, Kodak was going to have a hard time keeping Lovette, who was heavily pregnant, from getting involved. “It’ll be better to have the meeting before telling them. That way, Lovette can’t demand to go and Kodak won’t have to sedate her.” Tao and the four enforcers nodded, satisfied with the plan.
“Has Jaime come down for breakfast yet?” Shaya was referring to one of the pack’s other two new additions. Dante and Jaime had been in the same pack until he was fourteen, when he left with Kodak and several others, but he hadn’t seen her until recently.
As usual when Jaime was mentioned, Trick smirked devilishly at Dante, making the claw marks on his cheek darken. “Nope, not yet,” Trick answered, though his gaze hadn’t moved from Dante. “Who would’ve thought a slip of a girl could spook the normally unflappable you? It’s so much fun to watch.”
“She does not spook me.”
“Yes she does, she always has.”
Okay, that was true. When they were kids, Jaime had followed Dante around like a lost little kitten, trailed after him like he was the answer to all her problems. The guys had all thought it was hilarious that this short, plump little girl who was four years younger was crushing on him. She’d even played practical jokes on his girlfriends, and no amount of Trick’s teasing back then had made her stop. Apparently, she was immune to Trick’s nature. But Dante wasn’t, and because of Jaime he’d been subjected to daily doses of it.
Dante had expected that her crush would have died by now. Apparently not. She hadn’t flirted shamelessly with him or harassed him, but she had made her interest in him clear with bright smiles, subtle touches, and heated looks. Dante, however, had no intention of responding to her interest- something that he had made perfectly clear to Trick last night.
It wasn’t that Dante wasn’t attracted to her. Although she didn’t have the kind of face that made a guy halt in his tracks, within minutes of her company that guy would be wondering why he hadn’t noticed how stunning she was. And her mouth…Dante often found himself wanting to bite it. Her honeysuckle-and-caramel scent that his wolf had always found…intriguing…now had the distinctive tang of a mature female, and it incited his wolf.
Before Jaime, his wolf had never been attracted to submissive females. For that matter, neither had Dante. He liked feisty females whose strength matched his own, and he absolutely loved seeing them submit to him. Not that Dante had any wish to see women bound, kneeling, and calling him Milord-although that one time in Barcelona had been kind of fun. No, he liked women who would challenge him, because it made their eventual surrender that much more gratifying, and it meant that his dominance over them was real. They weren’t submitting because it was in their nature, they were submitting because he was in total control.
It wasn’t that either he or his wolf had no respect for submissive wolves; they were as important to a pack as dominant wolves, in that without them, there would be no balance. A pack of purely dominant shifters would never work. Being a submissive wolf didn’t mean they were passive, weak, soft-spoken, or quiet. Jaime sure as hell wasn’t any of those things-in fact, she was quite the opposite. A submissive wolf could actually be mentally stronger than a dominant wolf. However, they would never be physically stronger than one. As such, submissives never issued challenges on anyone of a higher rank. Most avoided confrontations at all cost and had an extremely difficult time saying no to anyone. Jaime had never suffered such problems because of her strength of character.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?